Abstract
The boundaries between viewer and artwork are well established by gallery and museum conventions, and reinforced via the minimal yet authoritative presence of thin cordon strings, white lines marked on the floor, alarms, glass cases, raised platforms and gallery staff. Relational art overrides these boundaries, inviting the audience into the spatiality and fabric of an artwork, requiring the work to be viewed, experienced or completed only once the audience member is actively involved and participating.
The work Sunset Video is placed within the installation C20th Mythological Beasts: At Home with the Locust People, the viewer is only able to view the video work by entering the physical space of the installation work, disrupting the conventional relationship between artwork and viewer, and potentially enhancing the viewers empathic contemplation.
At the time of this works creation in 1975, video as an integrated component of a sculptural installation (at this time called an ‘environment’), was an innovation, as was video as an art form.
The significance of the work Sunset Video is attested by its long exhibition history including: with C20th Mythological Beasts: 1975, West Street Gallery, Sydney; 1976, Three Statements on Environment, Ewing and George Paton Galleries, University of Melbourne; 1976, Post Object Show, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide; 1995, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne; as a video only: 2004, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne; 2005, Bellas Milani Gallery, Brisbane; 2007, Performance Space, Sydney. Additionally the work has been included in the inaugural selection of 20 Australian video artists for Monash University’s Australian Video Art Archive.